Sticks and Stones
by CelticClover
Summary: An angry student at school causes a panic and injures Alan. Technically an AU.


A/N: So today, April 20, 2009, is the ten year anniversary of the school shootings at Columbine High School near Denver Colorado. I thought I would write a story in memory of the thirteen people (twelve students and one teacher) that died on that horrible day.

This story contains some mature themes. I warn you now. I do not own Thunderbirds blah blah blah. I apologize for any mistakes I missed.

Sticks and Stones

Alan stared at the crazed teen standing in front of him. His heart was beating so fast that he thought it might pop out of his chest at any moment. He did not know how to handle this situation he found himself in. He wished that his brothers or his father were there. They would know how to handle a teenager with a gun.

The day had started out just like any other day at Wharton Academy. Alan got up at seven o'clock in the morning and went to his first classes. They were the usual, mostly boring, but with few interesting moments, classes he went to every day.

Everything continued on like that until it was time for lunch, that was when everything got out of hand. There were two hours in the day that the cafeteria was open for lunch eleven though twelve o'clock. The beginning of the second hour was when most of the students would go to eat. It was the one time of the day when most of the students were in one place.

Alan had to go to the library and check out a book before he could eat his lunch, so he was not in the cafeteria when chaos broke out.

He was on his way to the lunch room when he saw some of his classmates running out of the room. At first he thought they were playing some type of game, but then he heard a gunshot.

More students ran out of the cafeteria with looks of fear on their faces. He heard screaming coming from inside and his feet started to move toward the chaos. He heard rushed footsteps behind him and turned to see some of his teachers running to the room.

Alan was worried for his friends that he knew were still in the cafeteria. He went against his better judgment and followed his teachers into the room.

He was not prepared for the sight that met him. There was one teenager standing in the middle of the room and everyone else was as far away from him as they could get.

At first glance Alan saw at least five students on the ground bleeding from various gunshot wounds. A few of the students looked as if they would not be getting up again. That thought made his stomach churn. Some of the teachers that ran into the room before him went over to the injured students and the remaining teachers tried to calm the teen with the gun.

Alan did not know how to comprehend this sight. He had never seen so much blood and needless violence. He was frozen in place staring at his classmates on the floor. He did not come out of his daze until he heard another shot fired and the gasps from the remaining students in the room.

Alan looked up to see that one of the teachers not helping the injured students had been shot. He look at the guy that was holding the gun and tried to remember his name. He was not friends with him, but he had taken a class with him at some point. Eric, the name suddenly came to him. This kid's name was Eric.

Eric Evans, a student that was a year above Alan, was a person that Alan did not know very well. He had seen him around campus and had taken a class with him, but he had never spoken to him. Eric was usually alone doing his homework or playing his trumpet, he was not very social. Eric had never tried to talk to him and Alan had never taken the time to talk to the teen, now he wished that he had taken the time.

"Why are you doing this?" Alan asked the angry teen over the cries of his friends and classmates.

Eric turned his attention, and his gun, to Alan. "Why am I doing this? You want to know why I am doing this?" he yelled.

Alan took a step back when the gun was pointed in his direction. He was beginning to wish that he had kept his mouth shut. His question only seemed to make Eric more agitated.

"I am doing this because ever since I started going to this school all of you have given me a hard time. I am teased because I play an instrument and I work hard. I have glasses, my clothes are not in fashion, and I do not play a sport. That does not mean that I am not as good as the rest of you. No one has even tried to be my friend. If people are not making fun of me they are ignoring me," Eric continued to rant.

"But you never tried to talk to anyone else either," Alan said before he could stop himself. He realized after the words left his mouth that it was probably not the best thing to say.

"How can I? Everyone in this school has their little clicks. Why would they even take the time to talk to me? And why would someone like you, the great Alan Tracy, want to talk to a nobody like me? Why would you take the time?" Eric stated getting more and more angry every second.

Alan could only stare at this teenager. He did not know what to say or even what to do. He did not think that there would be a way to stop this guy from hurting anyone else without physically taking the gun from him, but he needed to try. He did not want this to go on any longer.

"I'm sorry," Alan said softly. It was the only thing he could think of. "We would have taken the time to talk to you. I would have talked to you. We didn't know you wanted us to. You were always by yourself."

"It is too late for apologies," Eric said tears starting to run down his cheeks. "You all should have done something before it went this far. You should have talked to me. You should have stopped them from making my life a living hell for three years. Now they won't make fun of me anymore and now they won't ignore me. Everyone will know who I am. They will remember that they pushed me over the top. They are the reason I am doing this."

With those words Eric pulled the trigger at Alan and then put the gun up to his head and fired.

Alan watched with shock as his classmate shot himself in the head. He did not feel the pain in his shoulder where the bullet had hit him. All he could do was stand there starting at the guy that could have done so much with his life, but ended before he had the chance.

Alan did not become aware of his surroundings until he felt someone touching his uninjured shoulder. He noticed that at some point he had fallen to his knees. He looked up and saw Fermat kneeling next to him.

"Wha…" Alan began.

"You've been s-sh-sh hit Alan," Fermat interrupted his friend. "We need to stop the bleeding."

Alan tensed in pain when someone pressed a towel to his shoulder. His eyes began to glaze over from the pain. He was still in a state of shock and he did not notice when the police and the paramedics arrived and got all of the students out of the school.

At one moment he was sitting on the floor of the cafeteria next to his friend and then he was in the back of an ambulance with his father. He did not remember his father coming or going out to the ambulance.

The events of the day were catching up to him and the blood loss and shock were too much for him to handle. He passed out in the back of the ambulance with his father holding onto his hand tightly.

It was 12:30 in the afternoon when Jeff Tracy got the worst phone call of his life.

He was in New York with two of his sons for business meetings. He had just sat down to lunch when his phone went off.

"Hello, Jeff Tracy speaking," he said into his phone.

"Mr. Tracy, this is Mrs. Rossen from Wharton Academy. We are calling because there was a shooting at the school today and we need parents to come pick up their children."

Jeff's heart nearly stopped when he heard the word shooting. _Oh my god Alan! _He thought. _This can't be happening. He was supposed to be safe at school. How could this have happened?_

"I will be there as quick as I can," Jeff told the lady on the phone and hung up.

He turned to his sons, Scott and John. "We need to get to Alan's school as quick as we can. There has been a shooting," Jeff told the younger men.

"What?" Scott asked his father. "Is Alan alright?"

"I don't know," Jeff responded. "All I know is that they are calling parents and telling them to pick up their children."

"Well then lets go get Alan," John said speaking for the first time.

The three Tracy men got into a car and drove to Alan's school as quickly as they could ignoring speed limits as they went.

They made it to the school in record time. They arrived in time to see the last of the students being taken out of the school.

Jeff looked around hoping to see his son, but all he saw was crying and shocked teenagers being comforted by their parents.

There were police and paramedics all over the place and Jeff hoped with all his heart that his son was not one of the students being taken to the ambulances.

"There is Fermat," Jeff heard John say.

He looked at the direction his son was pointing in and quickly moved over to the teenager that he considered part of his family.

"Fermat! Are you alright," Jeff asked once he reached the boy.

"I am fine Mr. Tracy," Fermat told the former astronaut. "But Alan was shot. They are taking him to an ambulance now."

Jeff froze at Fermat's news. _Not my Alan. Please let him be okay. _He thought while he looked for his son.

He saw some paramedics pushing a stretcher off toward his right. He saw the mop of blond hair at the head of the stretcher and knew right away that that was his son.

He turned to his other children. "Stay here with Fermat, I am going to go check on your brother," he told his oldest sons.

Scott and John both knew not to argue with their father at a time like this and they both nodded.

Jeff ran over to the ambulance that his son was in. He was afraid of what he would see when he reached it.

He was relieved to see that his son's injury was not as serious as it could have been. He tried to talk to Alan, but his son was not responding to him.

He became worried when he saw that his son's eyes were open, but not focused on anything.

He looked at the paramedics taking care of his son. "Is he going to be alright?" he asked them.

"We believe that he is going to be just fine," one of the medics replied. "His gunshot wound is not too serious and he seems to be in a bit of shock, but once we get him to the hospital he will be fine."

Jeff grabbed on to his son's hand and watched as the teenager finally noticed that he was there. When Alan closed his eyes he let go of the hand he was squeezing and told Scott and John that he was going to go with Alan in the ambulance.

Jeff got back into the ambulance and watched as his other sons got into the car and prepared to follow them to the hospital. He grabbed onto Alan's hand again and they drove off to get help for the youngest Tracy.

The next time Alan woke up he was in a bed that he did not recognize. He did not even remember going to bed. He tried to remember how he got to this bed and all of a sudden the previous days' events came back to him.

He felt someone holding his hand and opened his eyes to see Scott sitting in the chair next to his bed. He groaned when he realized that he was in the hospital.

"Hey Sprout," Alan heard Scott say. "How are you feeling?"

Alan could only groan in response. He felt pretty horrible. His shoulder was throbbing and he could not get the image of Eric shooting himself out of his head.

Scott looked down at his brother with a worried look on his face. Alan did not look to great. He looked up as his father walked into the room. He knew that the man wanted to talk to Alan alone so he let go of his little brother's hand.

He gave his brother one last look before he walked out of the room to get some coffee.

Jeff took the seat that Scott had just been sitting in. He stared at his youngest son for a moment trying to think of what to say.

"How are you feeling?" he finally asked. He frowned slightly when Alan only shrugged in response.

Jeff had a feeling that the gunshot wound was not the only thing bothering his son. Fermat had told him what happened in the cafeteria and everything that that Eric boy had said to his son.

"It is not your fault you know," Jeff said to his son.

Alan's head shot up at his father's comment. Where had that come from? How did his father know what he was feeling?

Alan looked at his father in the eyes. "I should have talked to him," he said softly. "I noticed that he was always alone, but I never even tried to talk to him."

Jeff looked at his son sadly. "There is no way you could have known what he was feeling," he told the teenager. "You can't become friends with everyone just because they are alone. It is not your responsibility. He should have come to somebody. You are no way responsible for what happened yesterday."

Alan looked at his father with tears shining in his eyes. He still felt guilty. He should have talked to Eric. He should have done anything. Maybe this would not have happened if he had just taken two seconds and talked to the lonely boy.

Alan was shocked when he felt his father pull him in a hug.

"There is nothing you could have done. This is not your fault!" Jeff told his son trying to get through to him.

Alan could not hold the tears back. He wrapped his hands around his father and cried. He hoped that the next day would be better. He still felt guilty, but he knew that he could get past this with his family's help.

A/N: Okay that is the end of this story. I kind of played into some stereotypes here and I hate stereotypes, but it was a good way to develop Eric.

I think it is very important to acknowledge school shootings. They are things that effect everyone, not only the people at the schools where they happen. I hope that we will never have to experience something like this again. They are horrid things.


End file.
